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Lizardfolk Religion
Lizardfolk typically live harsh, dangerous lives and spend most of their time and energy in pursuit of survival. Possibly because the time they have available for recreation is so rare and limited, their spiritual practices have come to be dominated by the pursuit of pleasure and contentment. Spiritual well-being is associated with physical well-being. It is thought that spiritual power increases one's competence allowing one to fulfill their needs more easily. It is also thought that pleasure and contentment are representative of an increase in spiritual power while pain and suffering are representative of a decline. This philosophy leads many lizardfolk to embrace a hedonistic life and indulge in physical pleasures whenever possible. The extreme of this philosophy is that most prevalently perceived and believed by outsiders but there exists a broad spectrum of practices among lizardfolk and individual beliefs and practices are variable. The primary areas of variance among Lizardfolk beliefs and practices revolve around two main variables. The first is a matter of scale. Some seek pleasure and contentment primarily for themselves whereas others endeavor to bring pleasure and contentment to their communities or to 'all' instead. The other main point of variance in belief and practice is that of focus on either pleasure or suffering. Many seek to maximize their pleasure by pursuing and indulging in the fulfillment of their desires. Others however see suffering as being caused by needs and desires which are unable to be fulfilled and instead seek to temper or eliminate such desires in the first place, thus leading to a life of greater contentment. Similarly, there are those who seek to reduce and eliminate suffering among others through charity or by becoming healers. Lapir Philosophy Lizardfolk are based upon hedonistic values with the idea that pleasure is the primary purpose of life. For those that follow the path of Lapir, this means avoiding pain and suffering rather than seeking pleasure. Lapir describes the the state of pleasure that is experienced when and individual is without pain or suffering. This pleasure can be physical, such as when one is without hunger, or mental, such as when one is without fear. In order to achieve Lapir, followers of this path seek to control their desires, because desire itself is perceived to be a form of suffering. By freeing themselves from desires for anything beyond their needs for survival, they maximize their ability to fulfill their needs while also freeing their minds from the fear and anxiety over such things. Extreme adherents advocate and practice an ascetic lifestyle. Tuor Philosophy Whereas followers of Lapir seek to reduce or eliminate desire, those who practice the path of Tuor are all about indulging them. Tuor practitioners believe that it is every individual's right to pursue pleasure and happiness and that ignoring one's desires is to suffer unnecessarily and is spiritually harmful. They seek to maximize the amount of pleasure they can derive from any given activity. They also seek to minimize the time and energy invested in survival so they can devote more to the fulfillment of higher desires. Also in contrast to Lapir, followers of Tuor do not view desire or even suffering as inherently negative. RAther than try to eliminate suffering, they instead seek to achieve a state of greatest net pleasure and believe that greater suffering can lead to greater pleasure upon satisfying the desire or need upon which that suffering is based.